Who is Marisa?
Marisa Guthrie is a business coach who is on a mission to put money in the hands of the right people. She works with small business owners and solopreneurs who want to do good and get paid their worth, defining success on their terms. A serial entrepreneur, Marisa has been in business for 25 years and has set up and run three social enterprises, as well as several other small businesses and a cross party think tank. Marisa now runs her coaching business and a membership programme for small business owners called Doing Business Differently.
Key Takeaways
1. Business owners have a scattergun approach to marketing which isn't targeted or efficient
2. Marketing can make business owners feel exhausted without a strategy and can cause them to run out of steam before they become effective
3. Without a strategy they can always feel like they are in 'selling mode' and this feels wrong if they wan t to be doing good.
Valuable Free Resource or Action
https://doingbusinessdifferentlymembership.thinkific.com/courses/the-doing-business-differently-experience
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Transcript
Note, this was transcribed using a transcription software and may not reflect the exact words used in the podcast)
Stuart Webb 0:21
Hi, welcome to It's not rocket science, five questions over coffee this time with no massive amounts of feedback, which is great news. So welcome to Marissa. Marissa is a business coach who works with people who are doing good. And she wants to help those people that were doing good. get paid for doing what they're doing and do the right thing. So Marissa, welcome to It's not rocket science, five questions over coffee. I hope I've described what you do accurately. But if not, I'm sure you're going to have plenty of fun over the next 1520 minutes telling us exactly what you do and who you help.
Marisa Guthrie 0:56
Absolutely. Well, thank you so much for having Mr. It's really good to be here. And yes, not withstanding technical issues, but there we go. That's what happens, isn't it? Brilliant? Marissa, start with the question, one that I always start with. So can you describe the problem that you, you help solve in your ideal client? Yeah. So quite rightly, as you said, Stuart, I work with small business owners and solopreneurs, who wants to use their businesses, for good to solve problems for people and planet, but who also want to make money. And often they feel that those two things are mutually exclusive. So typically, the things that those small business owners and solopreneurs struggle with most often is having a strategy, particularly when it comes to marketing themselves. So they often feel like they're doing all the things that they feel they should do, but they're never really getting any traction.
Stuart Webb 1:55
And so what do they do for themselves without help that you commonly see in those people? Marissa?
Marisa Guthrie 2:03
Yeah, well, it really comes down to three things. So first of all, they tend to use a scattered gunning approach when it comes to their marketing, and especially social media. So they feel like they have to be on all the platforms, and they're trying to be on all the platforms, but they don't really have any clear aim or goal or objectives. So they ended up getting exhausted and exhausting their efforts. Secondly, they'll hear about something that's supposed to work and they think, great. So they run with that for a little while, and get really enthusiastic about their marketing. But then they often run out of steam and give up. So they end up not posting and sharing consistently, not really engaging with their, with their audience. And then the third thing is typically, they feel like they're in selling mode all the time. So they feel frustrated, because that isn't really translating into sales. And they come to absolutely hate their marketing, because everything they do sounds very sort of two dimensional and boring. And so it doesn't really reflect who they feel they are at heart.
Stuart Webb 3:11
Brilliant stuff, Marissa, and often the main source of problems for small businesses, isn't it the fact that they believe they've got to sell and an actual fact, as I keep telling my clients, the thing you have to do is explain what you do, and then find the person that has that problem. And then you won't have to sell to them, they will request that you solve their problem. And then it's just a meeting of minds about whether or not you're working together. It's no longer a selling conversation. It's about how do you help me solve my problem conversation, isn't it?
Marisa Guthrie 3:41
Absolutely. It is all about problem solving. And we're going to come on to that I think Stewart in this conversation. So yeah, absolutely, completely 100% with you. So let's talk about that in the valuable free action or valuable free resource that you bring to the party in order to help those people that need those problems being solved for them, or to help them solve those problems. Well, I'm just like you, you know, we're just here to solve problems for people, aren't we so because this is an issue that I see all the time in the small business community, and I see all the pain and frustration and you know, exhaustion, frankly, it's it creates. I have a free ebook, which you can download from my website, which is Marissa Guthrie coaching.co.uk. It's, it's all there. And that is to help people create a simple and effective marketing strategy in three easy steps. So that you'll always have something compelling and original to say, and you'll start seeing followers converting to customers. So that that's one thing. But the other thing is too is that I'm also running a free 10 day training event which is starting next week, the 17th of November. And again there's a link to it here and it's called the doing business differently experience and that is for purpose led small business owners
Who really wants to do more of what they love and do that good in the world, and make money, but just can't figure out how those two things are going to fit together. So it's a really deep dive into the things that they need to know. And, you know, what I think is crucial with trainings is, it's all very well being told what you need to know. But having the time to implement so that you can actually make those changes and start to see results is what's really important. So that's how this training is really going to work. It's a series of webinars and q&a, there's also a nice Facebook community to really dive in and to, you know, to use me and lean into the resources that I'm creating, so that within those 10 days, people can really start to see changes and and you know, have time to implement the things that they need to to get the results that they need to see.
Stuart Webb 5:55
Brilliant stuff. So
is there a particular book or concept or programme that sort of helped you come to you to your, to your realisation of how you put together those sort of courses? Marissa?
Marisa Guthrie 6:07
Yeah, well, I mean, I'm pretty, it's pretty long in the tooth. So I've leaned into quite a few things in my time, but so there are lots of people and books that I could cite. But right now, I'd say that there are two books that have had a huge influence on me and my work. One of them is called The Big Leap by Gay Hendricks, and the other is called the calling by raw goddess. And the common theme that both of these books share is that really, we are often our own worst enemy when it comes to our attitudes to success and creating abundance. And it's often down to early life experiences, not exclusively. But mostly we take on an attitude to life that was set down by someone else, typically parents, but often family, in general, school, teachers, society, and so on. And we end up carrying that attitude into our business life, for better or worse. And what I love about both of these books, and both these writers is how they sort of skillfully demonstrate that with a little bit of self awareness, and a willingness to change, that actually, you can achieve anything. You just have to choose not to buy into those self limiting beliefs, and you have to do the work.
Stuart Webb 7:20
Brilliant. I must admit, I'm not familiar with either of those two books, Maurice, I've written them down on my pad notes me, I will be knocking them out. Because I do think that is a really big thing about most people, particularly when they enter any business, let alone the small business where you're doing, you're doing the work for yourself. But, you know, often I see people even in you know, starting out when they're working for a company, they believe they can never get anywhere because they were told by mom or dad or a teacher, you're never going to amount to anything. And that actually is the thing that guides their thinking they will be convinced they will never amount to anything and yet they've got great potential.
Marisa Guthrie 7:55
You're in for a real treat them Stewart because they're both Corkers, I can promise you, I will look forward to digging them out of a library later on today. So variously here's my here's my Get Out of Jail Free card, as I often say the the final question, which is the one where I've got to hand over to you what's the question that you think I should have asked you? And please don't just leave us wondering what the answer is answer that question for us as well. Well, it's always a great questions to it. So what you should have asked me is what the real secret to marketing yourself and your brand is that has nothing to do with self promotion. And I would have told you that the secret is to tell your story. I love the answer.
Stuart Webb 8:38
Question, but I do like the answer.
Marisa Guthrie 8:40
So storytelling is powerful, not only because it conveys enables us to convey concepts, ideas, and information. But importantly, it's how we invoke emotion and create emotional connection. So our human brains are hard wired for stories as they help us figure out our place in the world, who our tribe is where we belong. So no wonder it's used as such an effective marketing tool. So I just want to give three, three insights into, if you like, into what storytelling does. When it's done well, it demonstrates our values as business owners, and what's important to us. Secondly, actually, it tells the customer something about themselves that they might not have been able to articulate themselves. And thirdly, because all stories are unique to the storyteller, that uniqueness helps the customer differentiate, differentiate between you and your competitor. So it creates clarity as to why they should work with us. So all of that is a total win win. And that has nothing to do with selling or self promotion. It's just about turning up as yourself and telling your story.
Stuart Webb 9:53
Authenticity. Even this morning I was on a call with somebody and we were talking about the importance for authenticity. See, it's a it's a, it's a well overused concept at the moment, I think. But actually, I think the way you've just explained it is a brilliant way of breaking down what authenticity really is. It's about being being yourself in such a way that you're not selling. But being yourself in such a way that once again, we come back to that you help somebody with a problem they have, and you help them solve that problem. And I think that's a great way of putting it. Marissa, thank you so much.
Marisa Guthrie 10:25
Thank you.
Stuart Webb 10:27
I really appreciate the time you've been here, the time you made and We've obviously had a few technical difficulties, but I'm so glad we were able to get together and do this. And the course that you're running starting next week is still scrolling across the bottom of the screen, but I'll put that in the notes to today's episode. But listen, if you or anybody listening at the moment would like to find out when we do these, these talks so that you could join live and comment and ask questions or people go on to our newsletter website, which you can get to by going to TC a dot FYI, forward slash subscribe, that's TTA dot FYI, forward slash, subscribe, get onto the newsletter list. And then you'll get to hear about things like this Marissa, and also in the notes, you'll see there are links to where you find this on Apple podcasts and Spotify, etc, etc. So please like and subscribe to that as well. Marissa, thank you so much for being with us today. Really appreciate it. I'm now just going to play our outro music which gives you a few minutes to sort of relax and before I stopped recording, so thank you so much for being with us. Really appreciate it.
Marisa Guthrie 11:38
Thank you very much do it.
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